Was at my mother's again today. I have learned so much from her sitter, Lo.
Here's an example of my M's typical Passive/Aggresive behavior. I'm in the kitchen - 2 rooms away and she's at her computer and calls out, "GS, look at me! I need you to change this ink cartridge!" I respond, "I'm working on something. You can come in here or I will be there in a minute when I am done."
"Look at me" is a way to get me to stop what I am doing and move to her. The other day the car window was broken out of her brand new car. I was driving her to the auto glass place. When I was parking she tried to hand me her handicapped placard to hand on her mirror. My hands were full and I was busy. "Mom, my hands are full, just hang it on the mirror." So obvious, so subtle, so small and insignificant. Who can complain about such small things? such small things that go on one after the other, over and over, and over.
Lo continues to tell me about my mother's backstabbing and degrading comments about my mothering. My mother apparently feels sorry for my son when I discipline him. The other day she was criticizing me to Lo saying that I was too hard on my little boy in ways such as requiring him to take his dishes to the kitchen and requiring him to clean up his toys.
Lo has never seen a mother be so mean to her own daughter. She is also astonished at how differently my mother treats my brothers. But more than any of these things the most difficult things about my mother by far is the pathological lieing. For instance, she will say one thing to Lo and then just minutes later lie to me about the very same thing right in front of Lo who knows that she is lieing - no qualms. She lies about significant and insignificant alike to the point that it is impossible to know what the truth is. The only person she responds to is my oldest brother. So when I learned the other day that she had been lieing about an arrangement with a financial advisor I told her that my brother and I would be setting up an appointment with her and with us to accomplished what she said she had done a year ago. If I had confronted her without bringing my brother into it she would have simply continued to lie about it. She told Lo later that she was going to do what she had said she would do before my brother got back to town in a week. I don't believe her but either way I am still setting up that appointment.
I could go on and on and on and just touch on some of the stuff she has done in the last couple of days but the real point of all of this was that I had this eye opening experience once again that really shined a light on how her treatment towards me left me expecting to be mistreated, belittled, left out and put down. I could see - like a child's wooden puzzle how her cruelty led me to expect to be betrayed and excluded by others. Expect to be excluded and rejected and you will be.
It is so validating to have Lo stand there week after week and shake her head over my mother's behavior, especially her behavior towards me. This is the first time ANYONE has ever seen what I have experienced and even more she hears what my mother says behind my back. Until now I only knew my mother was talking about me behind my back by the results of what was happening around me. She worked hard and effectively to turn people against me all my life. Hard to image for me - as a mother - how anyone could give birth to a baby and then work systematically to destroy that soul throughout the baby's life. Hard to imaging - even though that baby was me.
